Update: NHL and Union Report to Mediation

To follow-up on my October post, “Could the NHL Lockout Benefit from a Mediator?,” as of Monday, November 26th, the parties reported an agreement to mediate. Three neutrals from Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service have been assigned. The sides met separately with the mediators on Wednesday, November 28th.

Although many may be satisfied with what seems like progress between the parties in agreeing to mediate in the first instance, others note that the mediation may not guarantee a successful end to the lockout.

Gary R. Roberts, dean and professor of law at Indiana University, and sports labor law specialist (and also my former Sports Law professor at Tulane), provides this take:

My guess is just based on past history and the tone of the way things are going right now is that this is probably not going to produce a settlement . . . . This isn’t like a hysterical couple doing divorces or a commercial dispute where one side or the other is just being totally unrealistic. These are two very sophisticated and experienced groups. I just don’t see how much a mediator can bring to the table other than to remind them of what’s at stake periodically. . . . Who knows how many seeds the mediator might plant that could eventually bear fruit . . . . It’s hard to predict. . . . Mediation tends to me a mechanism whereby tempers can be cooled, and people who are operating from unrealistic perspectives can be brought to see what reality is . . . . It sounds like they’re pretty much at an impasse . . . . Both sides have their perspectives and their objectives and neither side can accept a set of proposals that the other side insists is necessary. We really are at sort of a standstill.

“About $182 million apart on core economic issues, there’s further disagreement on matters such as contract length (players want none while owners want to institute a five-year limit) and arbitration rights.”